Early Morning Swim

The alarm went off at 6:30am, I got up, put the coffee machine on and went to the bathroom. I’d finished my breakfast by 6:45am which consisted of ground oats, semi-skimmed milk and whey protein, blended. The stage was set and after a couple mugs of java I was good to go.

I had often toyed with the idea of getting my training done and out of the way before work, leaving me with the rest of the day to relax, recover and enjoy the endorphins. Due to concerns with time management, pre-workout nutrition and apathy I never took the plunge, but yesterday I was feeling the need for a break from weight training and decided that some cardio would be a good idea. Skipping my Thursday night session was difficult but I don’t think my body could have tolerated it, so I checked the opening times and began making preparations.

The dry ingredients of my breakfast were weighed and left out alongside my vitamin and fish-oil capsules, I shaved, adjusted my alarm and got into bed a half hour earlier than normal. I got stuck into The Iluminatus! Trilogy for a bit, but as has been the norm for the past while, I found it difficult to sleep, my mind awash with what I was going to do the following day. I woke naturally at exactly 5:30am, went back to sleep and thankfully arose an hour later without any serious impediments, ready to take on the self-imposed challenge.

It was dark when I left my flat and I was surprised to see as much traffic and as many people as I did. I also thought that the gym would be more or less deserted at 7:30 on a Friday morning, but there was a healthy throng of fanatics present. Swimming has been dropped from my routine over the past months as I decreased the amount of cardio I was doing to focus more on strength, so I didn’t know what my performance would be like when I got into the water. My original plan was to do 50 lengths of breaststroke and although I found it tough going, when I got to 50 I decided to go for another 20 and my total time wasn’t too far off what I was achieving when I was swimming regularly.

I got into the office about 10 minutes later than usual, feeling good. I think morning workouts will become a staple in my lifestyle, although I don’t know if I’ll get back into swimming regularly: I could feel all the old familiar aches and pains to a small extent but what really got me was the monotony of only being able to do one type of stroke and doing that same stroke for the entire duration. I am looking forward though to finding out what the weights room is like at that time of the morning. Now for some food.